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On November 10, 2016, as Chief Scientist at Earthwatch Institute, I hosted an informal brownbag lunch to discuss the impacts of the presidential election on science and conservation. Unsurprisingly, a crowd of mostly millennials packed our Boston office conference room.

Defined as individuals who reached adulthood around the turn of the 21st century, the term millennial is often seen as pejorative. However, I see it as positive, because it refers to the current millennium, all its promises and problems, and the brave, pragmatic generation tasked with addressing the ecological mess earlier generations created and the new presidential administration threatens to worsen.

Since our post-election lunch, we’ve kept the conversation flowing in our office, meeting periodically to exchange ideas about what we can do to continue to support science and conservation. We all agree that to begin with, it’s important to not despair. Below are some of our insights.

Stephen Hart points out that as the most educated generation in history, millennials “should feel confident that we’ll be able to succeed where our predecessors have failed. Our success will depend on our willingness to stay engaged in the political process and vote for sustainable solutions.”

Many young people in our office stress that staying informed and involved is crucial. For Dustin Colson, this means organizing demonstrations and writing to elected officials to protest government or corporate actions violating our human right to a safe, healthy, ecologically-balanced environment. “Millennials have so many outlets and options for supporting science,” says Zachary Zimmerman, “that there’s no excuse to not be engaged in at least one way. We can donate instantly or go on monthly contribution plans, create art, share relevant science and debunk falsities on social media, host awareness events, and generally uphold a presence in our respective communities that climate science is real and worth understanding.” Dianna Bell says, “Millennials are great at organizing and have shown, especially during the primaries, that we care deeply and passionately. Continuing to organize both on and offline will be a great tool to support science and conservation during an upcoming era of uncertainty.”

According to Diana Eddowes, one of the most fundamental ways to support science and conservation is to be smart consumers. She says, “Younger generations often drive markets and demands for products. If we demand our energy to be clean, our products to be made from recycled material and in general consume less, we could shift markets (and policies) considerably.”

A good way to get involved is by volunteering at Earthwatch, suggests Keegan Dougherty. Earthwatch engages people worldwide in scientific field research and education to promote the understanding and action necessary for a sustainable environment. By supporting research and enabling people to participate in conservation science, we’re directly addressing global change and helping people make a difference as individuals.

Photo: Hannah Jane Cramer Millennials, Earthwatch Participants, and the Author on the Earthwatch Project Restoring Fire and Wolves to the Canadian Rockies

When it comes to challenges, millennials in our office identify one of the biggest as society’s perception of their generation. Jasmin Rostamnezhad says, “In this time of thriving social media and narcissism, older generations often don’t take us seriously. No matter what knowledge we carry and opinions we share, we’re often discredited.” As Dianna Bell explains, “Millennials are often characterized by qualities that, while true, don’t wholly define us as a generation. Because we’re saddled with such huge debt, we don’t buy homes and are more transient. But all these qualities are also strengths. We’re misunderstood as a generation. We aren’t lazy, we aren’t afraid to work hard, and we aren’t afraid to speak up. Millennials have inherited a society that’s stacked the cards against us, and a major challenge is addressing this inequality.”

Zachary Zimmerman offers a more positive take on the term millennial. “At a certain point, terms develop currency based on how regularly they’re used, and individuals don’t have much control over their popularity. Our generation should be focused more on how we can own the term and capitalize on it as a uniting quality, and less on how outsiders or dissenters use it to pigeonhole us based on our worst qualities.”

As a generation, millennials see finances as a top threat. While they desire to work for causes they’re passionate about, they’re challenged by the cost of living and the enormity of major issues. “We’re tasked with enacting greater change than our parents with fewer funds and less economic stability,” says Dustin Colson. Anna Woodruff’s biggest challenge lies in balancing making a personally meaningful difference in the world, securing a financially sustainable future, and staying optimistic while doing so. She explains, “As a cohort, we live in more of a global society than generations before us, and feel the weight of issues on that scale.”

Emma Taliaferro struggles with her passion for wildlife conservation and a serious lack of funding. She says, “I want to support science and conservation by donating half my paycheck to save endangered animals or by taking a trip that directly contributes to conservation! But realistically, I have to pay rent, and I can’t take that much time off.” Diana Eddowes who is expecting a child and paying graduate loans believes that becoming economically stable will help her spend more time doing the things she loves and helping people and causes.

While all the young people in our office expressed frustration, they also expressed great hope. Dustin Colson says, “There are moments when I’m working alongside a passionate environmental activist, a dedicated scientist, or an inspirational environmental educator and their excitement and hope become infectious. When I bear witness to these people’s passions I gain a personal stake in their dream for a better and more sustainable world.”

Some find hope in corporations. According to Keegan Dougherty, “Knowing that many companies are moving forward with sustainability initiatives, regardless of what the administration believes, makes me believe that we have a shot at addressing climate change in the long run.”

Many find hope in their peers and by taking action. “On days when I feel like hope might be lost, I come in to work and remember all the people who are passionate about the same things as I. We’re not alone and we’ll continue this movement together,” says Jasmin Rostamnezhad. Anna Woodruff says, “The rise in activism and discussion of inclusion among this generation give me hope that people aren’t going to just stand by and let the worst-case situation occur. With collaboration, we have a chance to create change even in dark times.” Zachary Zimmerman cites “my generation’s inexhaustible resourcefulness ” as a key source of optimism.

Millennial resourcefulness involves science and technology. Stephen Hart explains, “As scientific evidence becomes more impossible to ignore, I know people will fight even harder for a sustainable future.” Elise Begin agrees. “Now more than ever, it’s critical for millennials to support science and conservation.” She says, “We need to ensure that millennials continue to be involved in science by becoming scientists, contributing as a citizen scientists, reading scientific articles, or attending lectures.”

As for me, my greatest hope lies in the millennial generation and what they will do to advance science and conservation. They have the tools, skills, vision, and commitment to create a more sustainable world.

]]>The Role of Science in The Trump Erahttp://cristinaeisenberg.com/?p=607
Tue, 20 Dec 2016 21:27:00 +0000http://cristinaeisenberg.com/?p=607This Article was originally published by Huffington Post: The Role of Science in The Trump Era Only science based on rigorous, peer-reviewed research designed with full freedom of inquiry will work. Cristina Eisenberg Chief Scientist at Earthwatch Institute, Ecologist, and

Only science based on rigorous, peer-reviewed research designed with full freedom of inquiry will work.

This week the Electoral College confirmed Donald Trump as our next president. The election of a demagogue profoundly threatens our nation’s ability to produce sound science. And it creates a particularly pressing problem because of the many things Trump’s election isn’t changing—such as how nature works, and our human fundamental needs for survival.

Humans depend on nature for food, clean water, and clean air. We rely on the environment to help us regulate climate and disease, and to support nutrient cycles and crop pollination. Trump and his new cabinet will endanger all of these ecological functions, by suppressing the use of science to inform decision-making about them.

Since the 1920s, ecologists have been pointing out that nature is at risk due to unfettered human population growth, rapacious exploitation of natural resources, and related environmental pollution. In the 1960s, in response to air and water quality crises that caused human deaths and species extinctions, we used best science to create the Environmental Protection Agency and passed a formidable suite of environmental laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts, and the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Within one decade we began to see the fruits of these laws and their bedrock science. Species such as the bald eagle returned from extinction’s edge; air in cities became safer to breathe. Yet, because of our increasing demands on nature, these powerful laws have been unable to measurably slow climate change.

Photo: Cristina EisenbergBald Eagles in the Mist

Science is our most powerful tool to build on the legacy of these laws and craft public policy to slow and mitigate climate change. A warming global climate is leading to unprecedented human health and environmental threats, such as extinction over the next 100 years of up to 50 percent of species currently living on our planet. The only way to fully address these threats is by allowing scientists to conduct research effectively and transparently.

Photo: Cristina EisenbergPolar Bear Mother and Cub Waiting for the Ice to Form

Throughout his campaign, Trump sought support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than by using rational argument. Trump’s agenda to “make America great” includes slashing funding for science and universities, adopting a formal platform of climate-change denial, intensifying natural resources exploitation, weakening environmental laws, and reducing all kinds of diversity. Pundits point out that Trump’s atavistic demagoguery in assembling his cabinet creates a strategic assault on science. To that end, some of his nominees’ regressionary personal philosophies push the boundaries of legitimacy and directly counter the missions of the agencies they will be leading.

A tour of Trump’s challenges to science begins with his selection of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A party to at least 13 lawsuits attacking the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts who refers to himself on his website as the “leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda,” Pruitt is hardly supportive of natural resources policy checks and balance.

Trump’s top nominee for Secretary of Energy, former Texas governor Rick Perry, lacks the academic background to enable him to understand the essential role of science in maintaining US nuclear security. In sharp contrast to his predecessors, who were PhD physicists, he holds a bachelor’s degree in Animal Science. Yet he will take the lead in deciding how we manage our nuclear arsenal. Additionally, the Trump Transition Team’s intrusive questioning of Department of Energy scientists and contractors creates an ominous environment where it’s unsafe for scientists to use the term “climate change.”

Secretary of State nominee Exxon chief executive Rex W. Tillerson has a background in engineering and close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The billion-dollar Russian energy contracts brokered by Tillerson engender a huge conflict of interest. He’s persistently dismissed the severity of climate change, yet will be our top government official negotiating our engagement in international climate-change policies, such as the Paris Agreement.

In a field populated by serious contenders like Sarah Palin, Trump’s selection of Representative Ryan Zinke (R-MT) as Secretary of the Interior offers some hope in an otherwise bleak landscape. While supporting US energy independence, Zinke acknowledges that climate change must be addressed. He brings to the presidential cabinet a centrist, Roosevelt-inspired conservation philosophy. A pragmatist who favors sustainable natural resources extraction, he also supports Native American water rights and keeping federal lands intact.

Why does science matter so much in the Trump era? What is at stake? Put simply, according to ecologist Paul Ehrlich, our survival as a species is on the line. He calls out escalating indicators of global collapse such as climate disruption, environmental toxicity, the extinction crisis, soil destruction, famine, and pandemic outbreaks. Ignoring these signals is tantamount to driving civilization toward collapse. Supporting sound science will help us find solutions.

Science provides our best hope for the future of life on Earth. Indeed, since Aristotle’s time, leaders have seen science as the sharpest weapon any civilization can wield to improve their survival. But today, only science based on rigorous, peer-reviewed research designed with full freedom of inquiry will work. Linked to our constitutionally mandated freedom of speech, our freedom to do science is part of what truly makes America great.

Even the most conservative global science organizations are so troubled by the many challenges Trump brings to scientific integrity that they’ve been speaking out. Some have been urging the scientific community to be more vocal and frank about scientific issues. For example, recently more than 2,300 scientists (including 22 Nobel Peace Prize laureates) wrote and signed an open letter to president-elect Trump.

Beyond the scientific community, non-scientists can do even more to help defend science. As members of a democratic society, we can ask Congress to maintain freedom of scientific inquiry and diversity in science. Specifically, we can comment publicly on and vote to support environmental laws. We can urge the president to hire a national science advisor as well as other scientists with appropriate credentials in ecology, physics, and engineering to fill key posts in his administration.

Whether you are a scientist or a non-scientist, all of these strategies are about defending science and putting it into action. Now more than ever, science is our best hope for the future. And now more than ever, science needs you.

]]>Bison Homecominghttp://cristinaeisenberg.com/?p=614
Fri, 14 Oct 2016 21:39:30 +0000http://cristinaeisenberg.com/?p=614This Article was originally published by Huffington Post: Bison Homecoming Cristina Eisenberg Chief Scientist at Earthwatch Institute, Ecologist, and Book author This post is hosted on the Huffington Post’s Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and post freely to

This post is hosted on the Huffington Post’s Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and post freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

In September 2016, the aspen leaves shimmering gold, I ventured into the heart of the Canadian Rockies to Banff, Alberta, for the IUCN American Bison Working Group and American Bison Society (ABS) meeting. Against a backdrop of glacier-sculpted peaks, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) ecologist Keith Aune hosted members of the Confederated Blackfeet Tribes, scientists, conservationists, and government officials to discuss one of the most revolutionary conservation enterprises since letting wolves loose in Yellowstone in the 1990s.

Banff National Park, Alberta

Plains bison are coming home to the iconic landscapes they once roamed freely. Referred to as the Iinni Initiative (iinnii means buffalo in the Blackfoot language), this collaborative effort involves restoring wild, free-ranging bison to landscapes throughout the West, beginning in Alberta and Montana.

The American bison tale begins with what’s probably the nadir of human relationships with wildlife—the 19th century North American rapid, wholesale massacre of tens of millions of wild bison. Along with killing bison, we also removed other things that we found threatening—wolves and fire—effectively “dewilding” this landscape, to make it purportedly safer for agricultural development.

US National Archives Buffalo Hides, 1878

By the early 20th century, we moved this narrative to higher ground by rescuing bison from extinction. We herded the remaining 1000 individuals onto public and private lands, where they’ve lived in captivity ever since. To commemorate this conservation effort, in 1913 we minted US nickels that bore the image of a buffalo. But that wasn’t enough for a species that requires room to roam in order to be ecologically effective.

US National Archives US Nickel, 1913

Now we’re penning the third chapter—the 21st century bison return to the wild. While we can’t go back to what once was, whether restoring a species or ourselves (and one can argue that in repairing nature we heal ourselves as humans), we can move forward into a world in which herds of wild bison move freely across big landscapes inhabited by wolves and singed by fire, all of these forces filling their ecological roles, benefiting whole food webs and the human communities that depend on them.

Photo by Cristina Eisenberg Yellowstone Bison

What’s made this third chapter possible?

This bison homecoming has to do with the bold transboundary conservation work led by WCS and the ABS with diverse international partners—from tribes to government agencies to non-profit scientific organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund, Yellowstone to Yukon, and Earthwatch Institute.

It has to do with the Buffalo Treaty, signed in 2014 by eight tribes. Leeroy Little Bear, the Blackfoot elder who led its drafting, calls it a document of “cooperation, renewal, and restoration.” It empowers the now over twenty signatory tribes to assert that wild bison be restored to North America—across political, geographic, and cultural barriers. Rife with spiritual meaning, this restoration entails beginning to heal the damage done to indigenous people during the 19th century bison slaughter, which eliminated their primary source of sustenance.

And so the bison homecoming began in April 2016, with the transfer of 88 disease-free yearlings from Elk Island National Park, Alberta onto a large Montana ranch on the Blackfeet Reservation. Eventually they’ll be free to roam the Badger-Two Medicine region, a mostly roadless Rocky Mountain Front landscape. Aune, Blackfeet Chairman Harry Barnes, and tribal member Sheldon Carlson are leading this initiative, with support from the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, and the National Parks Conservation Association.

Bison homecoming will continue in February 2017, with a Banff National Park backcountry reintroduction, led by park ecologist Karsten Heuer. Farther south, in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta and on adjoining Blackfoot (Kainai First Nation) land known as the Blood Timber Limit, bison reintroduction is also being considered. Ultimately these herds will make up a larger meta-population of wild bison that will range from Banff to the Badger-Two Medicine region.

Since 2006 I’ve been conducting research in Waterton on how food web relationships between wolves, elk, and the foods elk eat shape whole ecosystems. In the process, I’ve learned that wolves need fire to control elk in this ecosystem. For my post-doctoral work, I took a close look at the large fires masterfully being set by park managers to restore park grasslands. Now my co-researchers and I have developed this study into an Earthwatch-funded partnership with Waterton and the Kainai First Nation that includes a third force of nature—bison. Citizen science, the trademark of all Earthwatch projects, is central to our Restoring Fire, Wolves, and Bison to the Canadian Rockies project.

Buffalo near Waterton Lakes National Park with mountain in the back.

In 2016, we expanded our research onto the Timber Limit. Here Earthwatch volunteers are helping us collect critical baseline data on bison habitat, elk foods and diet, aspen ecology, predator-prey relationships between elk and wolves, and on songbirds as a measure of biodiversity and habitat quality. We’re also mapping our study sites within the park and on the Timber Limit, using state-of-the-art geospatial technology that’s helping us assess fire impacts in burned sites.

The late Kainai elder, Narcisse Blood, inspired and initiated our collaboration. Today, the Kainai Environmental Protection Agency is guiding our research, under the leadership of Mike Bruised Head and Kansie Fox. Kainai tribal members Elliot Fox and DJ Bruised Head are working as our field technicians. Tribal elders Leeroy Little Bear, Wilton Good Striker, and Peter Weasel Moccasin will join us afield, to provide essential Traditional Knowledge perspectives.

Kainai Board of Education director Richard Fox and Kainai High School principal Annette Bruised Head are working with us to provide fellowships for teachers and students to join our Earthwatch project to discover the potential of this landscape to provide a home for wild, free-ranging bison. Kainai graduate students will be studying how to best restore this landscape to prepare for bison reintroduction. Our objective is to directly support the Kainai community with jobs and education for tribal members.

We’ve received generous funding for this work from Earthwatch, the Kainai School Board, and the AGL Foundation. Waterton ecologists and managers Dennis Madsen, Barb Johnston, Robert Sissons, and fire manager Scott Murphy are providing enormous support. Local ecologists John Russell, Rob Watt, and Donna Fleury are giving invaluable long-term help and advice. All of this demonstrates that bison homecoming takes multiple “villages,” decades of effort, and an unwavering vision of North America as a rewilded geography.

Bison grazing at the foot of Chief Mountain

In Banff, as I stood on the banks of Lake Minnewanka at the First Nations pipe ceremony to welcome bison, I felt great hope that we can mend our human relationships with the natural world. That hope came to me in the shape of a bison.

]]>End of an Era for Iconic Denali Wolf Pack?http://cristinaeisenberg.com/?p=630
Tue, 21 Jun 2016 22:01:27 +0000http://cristinaeisenberg.com/?p=630This Article was originally published by Huffington Post: End of an Era for Iconic Denali Wolf Pack? Cristina Eisenberg Ecologist, Author In 2012, to learn about carnivore ecology in Alaska and celebrate completing my doctorate, my family and I visited

In 2012, to learn about carnivore ecology in Alaska and celebrate completing my doctorate, my family and I visited Tom Meier, who led Denali National Park’s biological program from 2003 until his unexpected death in 2012. I first met this key mentor in the early 2000s, when I tracked wolves for him in Montana, to document a dispersing wolf population. Back then he worked for the US Fish and Wildlife Service on the Northern Rockies wolf reintroduction and strongly encouraged me to attend graduate school.

Tom Meier

In Alaska I joined him in his office, where a large Denali map hung on the wall. On it he pointed out a 7 by 20-mile notch in the northeast park boundary. Congress didn’t include this chunk of private land, a popular hunting and trapping area called the Stampede Corridor and Wolf Townships, when they expanded the park in 1980. Tom used a recent incident to illustrate conservation challenges where wolves are subject to legal killing beyond park boundaries.

Denali National Park Map, with Proposed Buffer

In May 2012, a trapper hauled a dead horse to a riverbank in the Wolf Townships near the park boundary. He set snares all around it, hoping to catch wolves attracted by the carcass. The snares lay in an area formerly managed as a buffer zone, where for one decade the state had prohibited wolf trapping to protect wolves that spend a good portion of their lives inside park boundaries. The state had lifted this buffer in 2010, with no plans to reinstate it. The trapper caught two wolves. One was a breeding female of a pack often seen by park visitors—the Grant Creek pack. To make matters worse, in June the other breeding female in this pack had died of natural causes. Thus it appeared there’d be no pups in this pack. While the trapper had done nothing illegal, this wolf’s death raised public ire and an emergency petition to reinstate the buffer, which the state denied.

At the heart of such transboundary issues lies the fact that the US National Park Service has a mission to preserve and protect natural resources, which means no consumptive or destructive use. Meanwhile, states have a mandate to conserve natural resources, which means wise use and can include hunting. In places like Denali and surrounding lands, these two different mandates collide, with animals such as wolves suffering the consequences.

The next day, we joined Tom and park wildlife biologist Bridget Borg to survey the East Fork wolf den. Discovered by Adolph Murie in1940, this den site had been used periodically by wolves throughout the decades. We crossed a stream and then bushwhacked through the willows along the East Fork River, stopping periodically to listen for signals from radio-collared wolves.

Murie’s East Fork den lay atop a high knoll. Ribbons of aspens grew on the knoll’s south-facing flank. Leaving the riverbed, we side-hilled and scrambled up a steep, partially washed-out talus slope, rested briefly on a grassy sward, and then thrashed through hellaceous shrub thickets toward the den.

The den’s dark, oval mouth lay in a slope of red-ochre sandy soil, topped by a thick thatch of grass and azure forget-me-nots. From this vantage point, we could see for miles along the East Fork River to Polychrome Mountain and beyond. In 2011, the Grant Creek pack had used a nearby den. Tom and Bridget had observed the pack using that other den during spring and early summer of 2012. They surmised that since the demise of the pack’s two breeding females, a third female may have bred.

We sat outside the Murie den and ate lunch. As we ate, we talked about wolf studies. There are places where scientists have had insights that have profoundly changed how we see the natural world. This was one of them.

East Fork Toklat River, Photo by Cristina Eisenberg

Murie spent weeks watching this den and the resident wolves through binoculars. Piecing together wolf social ecology and hunting habits, he found that these animals preyed mainly on sheep, primarily killing young and weak animals. He concluded that wolf predation had a beneficial effect on the Dall’s sheep population, countering the ideas of those who favored culling park wolves to increase sheep numbers. The park opted to use Murie’s science to manage its wolves, which meant continuing to protect them so they could serve their ecological role.

Many wildlife biologists followed in Murie’s footsteps in Denali, such as L. David Mech, Gordon Haber, and Vic Van Vallenberghe. Most recently, Bridget Borg looked at how wolf trapping outside the park affects wolf viewability inside the park.

We gazed out at the Toklat Valley and talked about geology and conservation. This big landscape bred big mountains and bigger thoughts. Its ineffable wildness had inspired science rooted in both empiricism and a deep love of nature. Tom was part of this legacy. We talked about hope. And as we discussed the vicissitudes of wolf management, he reminded us that as with all else, we couldn’t survive on sorrow and anger.

We got up and bushwhacked upslope, where we found still more dens. At the top of the knoll we found a meadow spangled with yellow cinquefoil and what Tom had been searching for: the carcass of the Grant Creek pack’s second alpha female. She died that spring of natural causes, perhaps while giving birth. In her lifetime she had many pups, who filled this landscape with their howls and wildness. She rested on a soft carpet of grass, her carcass intact and beautiful. Tom considered collecting her skull as a park specimen. He knelt, gently touched her thick, pure-white fur, and decided to let her be.

The wolf decline has continued in the four years since I visited the Murie den with Tom. In Denali, wolf numbers have dropped from 147 in 2007 to 49 in 2015. Visitor wolf viewing success has gone from 45% in 2010, before the buffer was lifted, to 5% in 2015.

Since 2012, the East Fork pack has dwindled from 14 individuals to 2—a gray collared male and a black uncollared female wolf, seen together last winter. Since then, the male was shot outside the park, his collar destroyed. The female was seen in mid-May at a den site, just outside the park boundary. She’s believed to have produced pups. No other wolves have been observed in the vicinity.

The East Fork female and pups’ future is uncertain without other wolves to help feed them. The conservation community has been urging the park and state to intervene and rescue the pups. If these wolves die out, this will mean the end of an iconic, ecologically valuable wolf family that has been studied since the 1930s.

]]>A Millennial Land Ethic: Or What Would Leopold Do Today?http://cristinaeisenberg.com/?p=640
Sat, 11 Jun 2016 22:21:00 +0000http://cristinaeisenberg.com/?p=640This Article was originally published by Huffington Post: A Millennial Land Ethic: Or What Would Leopold Do Today? Cristina Eisenberg Ecologist, Author In the mid-1940s, American conservationist and wildlife biologist Aldo Leopold articulated his now-famous land ethic statement, “A thing

In the mid-1940s, American conservationist and wildlife biologist Aldo Leopold articulated his now-famous land ethic statement, “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” The simplicity of Leopold’s land ethic belies the fact that it resulted from a lifetime afield, reflections on his own mistakes, and awareness that every living thing has value in an ecosystem.

Aldo Leopold, Photo Courtesy the Aldo Leopold Foundation

When he wrote these words, Leopold was proposing restoring the wolf to Yellowstone and other national parks. He was deeply immersed in educating the public and wildlife managers about the fundamentals of ecology, as applied to a Wisconsin deer population explosion. He argued passionately that game management had to shift from a focus on economics and extraction to a more holistic view of the biotic community—one that included ethics and aesthetics and restoring all species, including predators.

Mexican Gray Wolf, Photo by David Parsons

Because it addressed nature in moral as well as economic terms, Leopold’s revolutionary statement became the bedrock of the 1960s and 1970s environmental movement. It’s led us to greater awareness of our relationship with the natural world as we determine how to best manage and conserve it, opened the door for species recovery, and provided food for thought for philosophers and scientists alike.

Ideas such as Leopold’s inspired the creation of Earthwatch Institute, where I work as the chief scientist. Since 1971, our organization has been enabling people from all walks of life to join leading scientists working on crucial environmental research. Our mission is to engage people worldwide in scientific field research and education to promote the understanding and action necessary for a sustainable environment.

However, much has changed in the 45 years since Earthwatch’s founding by Brian Rosborough. Today, climate change, an exploding human population, enormous global economic challenges, and a more conservative political climate have significantly increased the conservation problems the world faces. Our organization strives to support rigorous science that enables people to take action to address these problems.

Most of our Earthwatch staff consists of millennials—the generation who reached adulthood around the turn of the 21st century. Like all millennials, they hold the Earth’s future in their hands. They hail from diverse academic backgrounds, but when you ask about their life goals, the concept of sustainability rapidly comes up. This is fitting, as they’ve inherited the problems created by previous generations, which include over-consumption of resources, ecological degradation, a burgeoning national debt, and mass extinction.

In our Boston office, the Science Club meets monthly to read scientific journal articles and books and discuss topics relevant to science and conservation. Recently, we read Leopold’s book, A Sand County Almanac. After a lively discussion about how his words and insights are even more relevant now than when he wrote them 65 years ago, I asked our staff to create a millennial land ethic—one that reflects what we know now that we didn’t know in Leopold’s era. In other words, what would Aldo do today?

Today’s millennials know that creating a healthier, more sustainable world won’t be as simple as we imagined in 1970. Some of the millennials in the Earthwatch office urged a big-picture approach that puts science and ethics firmly at the forefront. Zachary Zimmerman wrote, “It took millions of years for our universe to engineer something as infinitesimally unlikely as life, and many more to establish a balance between all its forms across the planet. Let us not be so arrogant as to think we are ready to step up to that drawing board with but a few hundred years under our belts.” Keegan Dougherty stated, “The natural world is our own, but it does not belong to us. It is impossible to restore, only to nudge creation to start anew. It is right to encourage land that is naturally productive, biodiverse, stable, and integrated with the wider world.”

Other Earthwatch millennials focused on making their language more precise and reflective of new science about the complexity of ecosystems. This meant eliminating fuzzy words such as “integrity” and replacing them with ecological terms. Elise Begin wrote, “A thing is right when it tends to restore or preserve the resilience, stability, complexity, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise,” and Laura St. Andrews contributed, “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the complexity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community’s natural destiny. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

The idea of how far we go to fix nature came up. Ali Soofi stated, “A thing is cooperative (balanced) when it tends to preserve the biodiversity, connectivity and natural, indigenous, aesthetic of the biotic community sustainably. A thing is disruptive (unbalanced) when it tends otherwise,” and Jacob Samborn wrote, “A thing is inculpable, blameless, when it neither inhibits nor propagates against the natural selective pressures of the biotic community. To tend otherwise is artificial.”

So what would Aldo do if he were alive now? He’d embrace ecological complexity in finding solutions. He’d adhere to ethics in making decisions about our natural resources. As in the 1930s and 1940s, he’d hold our leaders and government managers accountable for maintaining the health of the land, even tethered by economic feasibility. Finally, he’d be as inspired as I am by the millennial generation and their vision for a healthier, more intact planet.

Earthwatch millennials give me great hope. Under their watch and in their capable hands, they’ll apply, in Leopold’s words, “gentler and more objective criteria” to sustain the natural world and all its diversity and beauty.

]]>Rewilding the shortgrass prairiehttp://cristinaeisenberg.com/?p=580
Tue, 07 Jun 2016 17:51:51 +0000http://cristinaeisenberg.com/?p=580This Article was published by High Country News: Rewilding the shortgrass prairie A scientist with ranching roots is trying to restore balance to degraded grasslands. Before European settlers came to North America, bison migrations were essential to the annual renewal

]]>This Article was published by High Country News: Rewilding the shortgrass prairie

A scientist with ranching roots is trying to restore balance to degraded grasslands.

Before European settlers came to North America, bison migrations were essential to the annual renewal of shortgrass prairie ecosystems, says EarthWatch chief scientist Cristina Eisenberg. By nipping off grasses, fixing nitrogen in the soil, and churning up the earth, their passage kept grasslands across parts of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and Idaho functioning smoothly.

Equally important was fire, which led to spikes in plant productivity, and wolves, which controlled bison and elk populations. Eisenberg calls bison, wolves and fire the “keystone forces of nature” — the three legs of a stool that prop up a vast array of plants and animals in grassland ecosystems. Of course, she adds ruefully, European settlers found all three of these important forces “terribly inconvenient” and spent centuries trying to wipe them from the landscape.

Now, we’ve come full circle: Land managers in many protected places — from Yellowstone to Rocky Mountain National Park to Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, just over the Canadian border from Glacier — are trying to rectify decades of misguided policy by reintroducing one or more of the stool’s three legs. Eisenberg has just one question for them: “Is this even working?”

In other words, is it possible to rewild a place without all three legs in place? To answer that question, Eisenberg is conducting research in both Waterton Lakes, where there are wolves and controlled fire but no free-ranging bison, and on land owned by the Blackfeet Nation just outside the park, where the tribe is interested in bringing bison back. By collecting baseline data and comparing restoration efforts in both places, Eisenberg hopes to answer basic questions about shortgrass prairies — How often did they burn? How many bison are enough? — that could guide land managers elsewhere in the West struggling return grasslands to a more natural condition.

“We’re trying to re-wild North America with mixed success,” says Eisenberg, who raised her family on 20 acres in northwest Montana and now works primarily as a research scientist. “It’s like trying to fix a watch and you’re missing one of the critical pieces. It might work for a while, but it’ll keep breaking and you’ll keep having to fix it.”

In Waterton Lakes, for instance, aspens are encroaching onto the shortgrass prairie. Only 3 percent of Canada’s shortgrass prairie remains, so park managers are particularly keen to conserve what’s left. The obvious solution seemed to be controlled burns — studies in Rocky Mountain National Park and elsewhere have shown that elk browse aspen shoots so heavily after a fire that they knock back aspen, making room for grasses to grow.

But that hasn’t happened in Waterton. Eisenberg suspects it has to do with the presence of wolves, which were absent from the previous study sites. “Instead of browsing the aspen sprouts, the elk are avoiding them, because there’s all this stuff on the ground that makes it hard for them to run away if a wolf is chasing them,” she hypothesizes.

A more holistic solution, Eisenberg thinks, would be to bring back free-roaming bison, which suppress woody regrowth by trampling and digging it up with their horns. But that’s controversial with local ranchers. So Eisenberg is working with the Blackfoot on nearby tribal land to conduct mirror-image studies to those inside the park. The joint studies are funded through 2020 by EarthWatch, the Blackfoot and Parks Canada. Her work is still in it’s relatively early stages, but eventually, when bison return to tribal lands, she hopes to have all the pieces in place to track their effect on biodiversity, plant productivity and other measures of ecosystem renewal. “None of these things is a silver bullet alone,” she says. “In order to fix the ecological problems we’ve created, you don’t just put back something you took out without understanding how it’s going to affect everything else.”

I asked Eisenberg if it makes sense, in today’s world, to attempt to restore environments to some idealized pre-contact state. She thinks it does. Any one of the stool’s legs increases biodiversity wherever it occurs, she said. “And when they occur together, it’s unbelievable what happens in terms of species diversity.” In the face of climate change, that increased biodiversity may be the best form of insurance against extinction.

]]>Shifting Baselines and Endangered Species Recoveryhttp://cristinaeisenberg.com/?p=577
Sat, 28 May 2016 17:33:56 +0000http://cristinaeisenberg.com/?p=577This Article was published by The Huffiington Post: Shifting Baselines and Endangered Species Recovery The world is always changing, bringing bold breakthroughs in technology and conservation, as well as formidable challenges. In 1970, 20 million Americans celebrated the first Earth

]]>This Article was published by The Huffiington Post: Shifting Baselines and Endangered Species Recovery

The world is always changing, bringing bold breakthroughs in technology and conservation, as well as formidable challenges. In 1970, 20 million Americans celebrated the first Earth Day, formally launching a coordinated effort to address the rampant ecological degradation of the era. In short order, Congress passed a raft of powerful environmental laws that govern how we manage ecosystems and the species in them: the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA, 1970), the Clean Air Act (1970), the Clean Water Act (1972), the Endangered Species Act (ESA, 1973), and the National Forest Management Act (NFMA, 1976), among others. However, over 45 years later, global change is shifting scientific baselines for endangered species recovery, engendering years of litigation and conflict among stakeholders.

Bald Eagles, Photo by Cristina Eisenberg

Back in the 1970s, we thought saving nature would be as simple as deciding to do so — like building an ark. And in some cases, as it was. We banned DDT, and many bird species that had been experiencing the lethal eggshell-thinning effects of this toxin rapidly recovered. But in other cases, as with the wolf, grizzly bear, lynx, polar bear, northern spotted owl, and salmon, federal protection under the ESA and other laws hasn’t created a simple path to recovery. Emerging trends have greatly complicated conservation, shifting baselines for conservation of species and whole ecosystems.

These shifts include:

Climate change – The climate has warmed 1.3 to 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 to 1.1° Celsius) since 1885, mostly since 1970. This has made extinction risk on Earth 1000 times higher than normal overall.

Polar Bear, Photo by Cristina Eisenberg

Explosive human population growth – The current global human population is at 7.5 billion people, roughly double what it was in 1970, greatly increasing human impacts on flora and fauna.

Economic challenges – The US national debt is 50 times greater than in 1970 (without accounting for inflation), thereby significantly reducing funds for research and conservation.

A more conservative political climate – The US political climate is less progressive than in the 1970s and 1980s. Today, many of our environmental laws face major ongoing congressional challenges.

New science about ecosystem complexity and population viability – In the past 20 years, we’ve found that predators such as wolves can create ecosystems far more resilient to climate change than those that don’t contain these keystone species. However, these far-from-simple effects are contingent on many other factors, such as climate and fire. Advances in DNA technology are enabling a more empirical definition of what constitutes ecological recovery for threatened and endangered species. In some cases this number is significantly higher than what we imagined in the 1970s.

Mexican Gray Wolf, Photo by Cristina Eisenberg

How are these shifting baselines affecting how we apply laws such as the ESA? For species negatively impacted by climate change, this means redefining what recovery means — where and over how long and how many individuals. For example, protecting polar bears from hunting in the Arctic may be insufficient to save a species whose essential habitat for survival (sea ice) is diminishing rapidly. It also means readjusting our notions of how long and how much money endangered species recovery will take. For a species such as the northern spotted owl, which needs mature forest to thrive, and which is being threatened by expansion into its range of the more aggressive barred owl, scientists are beginning to wonder whether recovery is attainable. Then there are the many millions of dollars it actually costs to apply laws such as the ESA, NEPA, and NFMA to attempt to recover salmon in the Pacific Northwest. When you factor in climate change, the complex ESA effort to recover the six salmon species listed since the 1990s can resemble a Sisyphean battle.

Spawning Salmon, Photo by Cristina Eisenberg

What’s the solution? Some recommend not changing anything and soldiering on to apply laws that no longer quite fit our radically changed world or reflect the current state of scientific knowledge. Others suggest abandoning species recovery or weakening environmental laws. None of these are viable options.

Scientists such as Susan Clark have found that best science that accounts for the needs of threatened and endangered species and the human communities affected by their presence, applied within an adaptive management framework, can go far toward recovery. Adjusting laws to address threats such as climate change that weren’t on anyone’s radar screen in 1970 will make these statutes as effective as possible. Clearer definitions of fuzzy terms such as what constitutes a “significant portion” of a species’ range (per the ESA) also would be helpful.

Given that scientists estimate that, due to climate change and other factors, 35 percent of the species currently on Earth are expected to become extinct by the year 2050, and 50 percent by the year 2200, we need to do something. As Einstein put it, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking that created them.” We would do well to heed his wise words as we sail our raft of environmental laws into the brave new world we’ve created.

]]>In Extinction’s Way: The Wolverine and Climate Changehttp://cristinaeisenberg.com/?p=574
Tue, 24 May 2016 17:22:57 +0000http://cristinaeisenberg.com/?p=574This Article was published by The Huffiington Post: In Extinction’s Way: The Wolverine and Climate Change It’s the stuff of legends. In April 2016, a rancher shot and killed a wolverine in North Dakota. Officials identified the animal as M56,

]]>This Article was published by The Huffiington Post: In Extinction’s Way: The Wolverine and Climate Change

It’s the stuff of legends. In April 2016, a rancher shot and killed a wolverine in North Dakota. Officials identified the animal as M56, a radio-collared individual from Yellowstone who rose to fame in spring 2009 when he dispersed over 500 miles across the Great Divide Basin, crossing Interstate 80 on Memorial Day weekend in the process, eventually turning up in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. Until his collar quit working in 2012, its data indicated that he’d remained there among the snow peaks. How this peripatetic male had ended up in North Dakota, where his luck ran out, will remain a mystery.

Then there was the radio-tagged young male wolverine who a few years back summited the highest mountain in Glacier National Park, ascending the last 4,900 feet up a sheer, nearly vertical ice rampart in less than 90 minutes. He made the ascent for no obvious reason and presumably left his urine on the summit to mark his turf. Such feats have inspired even the most staid scientists to refer to the wolverine as a “badass” species.

Despite its physical prowess, the wolverine is highly vulnerable to extinction in the contiguous 48 United States. Snow availability is its most critical habitat need—for denning as well as foraging. In the far north, because of deep cold, it has lots of habitats. Farther south, its habitat occurs only in the mountains in discontinuous, rapidly shrinking patches. To make matters worse, of all the large carnivore species, the wolverine has one of the lowest reproductive rates and the highest metabolic and mortality rates.

In 1994 and 2000, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) considered Endangered Species Act (ESA) protection for the wolverine. However, each time it found listing unwarranted due to lack of data about this species’ historic range. To address this lack, ecologist Keith Aubry analyzed wolverine trapping and observation records and found that from 1801 to 1960, the species had occurred throughout the Intermountain West and Upper Midwest. Between 1961 and 1994, people continued to report it in the northern Rockies and Cascade Mountains. Then from 1995 to 2005, these reports declined. Nevertheless, in 2008 USFWS deemed listing unwarranted on a technicality (none of these wolverines constituted a distinct population, as defined by the ESA). Environmental groups sued and won.

Currently 250-300 wolverines exist in the contiguous United States. Scientists have attributed their ongoing decline to climate change, which is ineluctably reducing wolverine range to isolated mountaintops—creating habitat islands that impair genetic diversity. Other threats include backcountry recreation, roads, and trapping.

By 2010, wolverine trapping had been prohibited in the US, except for Alaska and Montana. In October 2012, environmental groups litigated the ecological soundness of lethal wolverine trapping in Montana and prevailed. Meanwhile, wolverine numbers continued to plummet. In response, in December 2010, USFWS designated it a candidate for ESA protection. However, a candidate species backlog put the wolverine at the end of a very long line.

Concern arose that given this species’ low survival and melting habitat, it might go extinct before USFWS was able to list it. When another lawsuit propelled the wolverine to the front of the line, the Service proposed filing a listing rule by 2013. A panel of scientists convened by the Service recommended reintroducing the species in Colorado (which has 28 snow peaks over 14,000 feet in elevation).

Remarkably, in August 2014 the Service withdrew their listing proposal, maintaining that per scientific review, the wolverine has steadily recovered in the past half century, and that while the climate is warming, climate change effects are unlikely to place it in danger of extinction now or in the foreseeable future. This inspired yet another lawsuit. In April 2014, federal judge Dana Christensen overturned the Service’s decision, calling the wolverine a “snow-dependent species standing squarely in the path of global climate change.”

ESA protection will yield a recovery plan. In the meantime, the temperature continues to rise, increasingly shrinking and fragmenting wolverine habitat, so what’s next? This species’ second most important ecological need is safe passage between habitat patches. National parks provide wolverine refuges. But as M56 graphically demonstrated, parks are little more than postage stamps of security for a species that needs so much room to roam.

As wildlife biologist and author of The Wolverine Way Doug Chadwick wrote, “If the living systems we choose to protect aren’t large and strong and interconnected, then we aren’t really conserving wolverines. Not for the long term. Not with some real teeth in the scenery. We’re just talking about saving nature while we settle for something less wild.” In our warming world, ultimately it will take a combination of government protection, reintroduction efforts in places like Colorado, protected corridors, and changes in natural resources management to ensure this formidable species’ survival.

]]>TEK and the Return of Wolves, Fire, and Bisonhttp://cristinaeisenberg.com/?p=550
Mon, 21 Mar 2016 20:54:28 +0000http://cristinaeisenberg.com/?p=550This Article was published by The Huffiington Post: TEK and the Return of Wolves, Fire, and Bison Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) is the wisdom indigenous and local people acquire by living on the earth. Rooted in a specific landscape and

]]>This Article was published by The Huffiington Post: TEK and the Return of Wolves, Fire, and Bison

Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) is the wisdom indigenous and local people acquire by living on the earth. Rooted in a specific landscape and based on the fact that everything is connected, TEK braids together relationships between plants, animals, the earth, the seasons, and people. At its heart lies the concept that human and non-human components of the natural world are inseparable. Additionally, TEK links ecology to spirituality and cultural values.

Tipi Waterton Lakes National Park

A TEK worldview contrasts sharply with the command-and-control approach to the natural world Euro-American settlers brought to North America in the 1600s. In response to the wave of extinction they caused, in the late 1800s US and Canadian leaders created the North American Model of wildlife and forest management. This model was forged by Theodore Roosevelt, who thought nature needed to be conserved by man for our benefit and use, and Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the US Forest Service, who saw natural resources, be they forests or deer, as crops to be produced and harvested sustainably.

Bison Skulls, Circa 1880

Roosevelt’s and Pinchot’s well-intentioned ideas about natural resources created other problems that we’re working to fix today. For example, they believed that anything that interfered with top-down management, such as wolves and fire, were inconveniences to be eliminated. Under a Pinchovian regime, they swiftly were.

Gray Wolf, Courtesy David Parsons

In the middle of the last century we learned some hard lessons. Ecologists Charles Elton and Aldo Leopold discovered that wolves and fire have essential roles in keeping ecosystems healthy. Rachel Carson found that everything is connected and that how we managed rivers, croplands, and forests had created a lethally toxic wasteland. Consequently, we began to listen to Native Americans and First Nations who for thousands of years had inhabited this continent freely with millions of migratory bison and several hundred thousand wolves, and who set fires to invigorate prairies.

Aldo Leopold, Courtesy The Aldo Leopold Foundation

In 2006 as a new PhD student, I began working on a transboundary research project in the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem in two national Parks: Glacier National Park in Montana, and Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta. I wanted to know how wolves interact with fire to influence aspen ecology. Six years later, when I completed my PhD, I’d learned that wolves need fire to control elk in this ecosystem.

Fire, which causes trees to topple and aspens and shrubs to sprout madly, gives wolves a hunting advantage. In this prairie-aspen landscape, elk chased by wolves hit fire sites and stumble over downed, fire-killed trees and new sprouts. Where there are wolves, to stay alive elk must avoid severely-burned places. This gives aspens and shrubs a break, enabling them to grow above the reach of hungry elk. Lacking wolves, complacent elk browse post-fire sprouts to death. Relationships in which an apex predator (such as the wolf) directly affects prey behavior and indirectly benefits plant communities are called trophic cascades.

Elk Browsing Aspen, Photo by Cristina Eisenberg

Since 2008, thanks to Waterton natural resources officers and Parks Canada funding and logistical support, my colleagues and I have been studying two fires: the 2008 and 2015 Y-Camp Prescribed Fires, which burned 1,200 hectares twice, and the 2014 Red Rock Complex Prescribed Fire, which burned 2,300 hectares. These sites contain a very high elk density and two wolf packs. Managers’ main objective is to restore the prairie in the burn units. To that end, we’re investigating whether two key ecological forces historically present in this system (fire and wolves) without a third (bison) can return this fescue grassland to pre-Euro-American settlement conditions.

Prescribed Fire, Waterton Lakes National Park Courtesy Parks Canada

In 2013, Narcisse Blood, a leader in the Kainai First Nation (the Blood Tribe, part of the Blackfoot Confederacy), contacted me on facebook, curious about trophic cascades. Six months later, when the fireweed was in bloom and the elk were bugling, he and his wife Alvine Mountainhorse came to the Waterton research house for supper. Over homemade pizza topped with meat from an elk I’d hunted, we traded wolf stories for hours. Narcisse explained to me and my field crew that our study site lies at the feet of Chief Mountain, which is sacred to the Kainai. Alvine taught us the Kainai word for wolf: ómahkapi’si.

Chief Mountain, Photo by Cristina Eisenberg

We stayed in touch across the wheel of the seasons. In 2014 and 2015, Kainai conservation biologist Kansie Fox, her natural resources technicians, and anthropologist Kurt Lanno joined us afield. We continued the conversation begun by Narcisse, who died tragically last year in a car accident.

Narcisse Blood

As a result of walking this prairie together and exchanging ideas and stories, we’ve developed a partnership. With generous funding from the Kainai Board of Education, the AGL Foundation, Whitefish Community Foundation, Earthwatch Institute, and private donors, in summer 2016 we’re initiating the Kainai First Nation Community Fellows Program. Kainai high school students, teachers, and community members will join us to learn to measure fire and wolf effects in this ecosystem. We’ll share TEK and ecology as we discuss wolves and fire. We’ll talk about the role of bison. And together we’ll discover ways to honor this landscape and keep it as healthy, connected, and wild as possible.

]]>Quantifying Wildness; Tracking Wolves and Elk in the Rockieshttp://cristinaeisenberg.com/?p=505
Fri, 08 Jan 2016 02:16:41 +0000http://cristinaeisenberg.com/?p=505This Article was published by The Huffiington Post: Quantifying Wildness; Tracking Wolves and Elk in the Rockies Twenty years ago, I was a stay-at-home Montana mom living in a place where the large carnivore population (wolves, bears, cougars) outnumbered the

This Article was published by The Huffiington Post: Quantifying Wildness; Tracking Wolves and Elk in the Rockies

Twenty years ago, I was a stay-at-home Montana mom living in a place where the large carnivore population (wolves, bears, cougars) outnumbered the human population. Parenting our daughters here required learning new life skills–such as wildlife tracking. Before I could send our kids out to play, I’d go tracking in our yard and woods to see who’d been around. If I found fresh grizzly bear or cougar tracks, I planned an indoor activity instead. This strategy worked well.

Beyond keeping my family safe, tracking had many personal benefits. It sharpened my senses, gave me a keen awareness of the wildlife community, and made me feel part of the natural world, rather than a detatched observer. And when I eventually returned to college to become a scientist, my tracking skills provided the foundation for my wildlife research.

The past 40 years have brought great technological advances in how we survey animal movements. In the 1970s, scientists pioneered the use of Very High Frequency (VHF) collars that send out radio signals to indicate animal locations–called telemetry. In the mid-1990s, this technology leapt forward with Global Positioning System (GPS) collars that collect animal location data via satellite signals with up to one-meter accuracy.

The Author Radio-Tracking a Wolf Photo by Brent Steiner

VHF- and GPS-collar data enable scientists to answer questions about how animals use a landscape. However, this technology is expensive and invasive. Collars can cost several thousand dollars, and actually placing one on an animal can cost thousands more for trapping, helicopter time, and veterinary care. While animals recover from being trapped or net-gunned from a helicopter for collaring, and these procedures usually don’t injure them, the experience can be traumatic. Cameras set to automatically record images when an animal walks by (called camera traps) are minimally invasive, but also expensive to purchase and maintain.

However, long before such technology existed, wildlife biologists tracked animals the way humans have for millennia–by following their trails, identifying their tracks and droppings (called scat), and finding their dens, rendezvous sites, and carcasses. Today, thanks to scientist-trackers who have standardized such methods and championed noninvasive work, wildlife tracking has made a tremendous comeback as a top wildlife survey method.

Wolf Tracks, Photo by David Moskowitz

When I began to study wolves and their prey as a scientist, I used VHF and GPS collars, but also turned to traditional wildlife tracking. In 2007 as a PhD student, I worked with Parks Canada conservation biologists to standardize my tracking methods. I learned to collect wildlife data in transects that systematically cover a whole landscape. By trial and error, I learned a large sample size (e.g., 100 kilometers of transects) supports even the most sophisticated statistical analysis. While this sounds like a huge effort, the transect work goes rapidly.

GPS-Collared Elk Photo by Roger Creasey

Since 2008, my colleagues and I have been studying two fires in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta: the 2014 Red Rock Complex Prescribed Fire, which burned 2,300 hectares; and the 2008 and 2015 Y-Camp Prescribed Fires, which burned 1,200 hectares twice, in April 2008 and April 2015. The sites contain a very high elk density and two wolf packs. Management objectives are to reduce aspen land cover and restore the prairie within the burn units. In these sites we’re studying how fire and wolves influence elk behavior. We want to know whether restoring two out of three key ecological forces in this system (fire, wolves) without restoring the third (bison) is sufficient to return this fescue grassland to pre-Euro-American settlement conditions.

Waterton Lakes National Park Prescribed Fire, Photo Parks Canada

While we’ve had 17 elk GPS-collared on this project, we’ve found given our study questions, that track transect data, which cost one hundredth of what GPS collar data cost, provide the most accurate way to determine where elk are spending their time. These data permit analyses of the potential drivers of elk behavior, such as food and wolf predation.

Accordingly, in the spring between snowmelt and greenup, we collect track transect data on elk, deer, moose, wolf, bear, cougar, and coyote presence. The 1 kilometer-long, 2 meter-wide transects extend from the prairie deep into aspen stands and are based on the plots in which we collect grass and aspen data. Since 2007, volunteers have been joining me and our technicians for this work, which is both highly rigorous science and the ultimate tracking adventure.

Over time, our track transect data have revealed astonishing things: a pair of wolves killing an elk on our transect line as we walked the transect; an alpha female wolf we didn’t know existed feeding on a fresh elk carcass in a high predation-risk transect; a pair of grizzly bears mating; a cougar stalking elk. These transects give us a window into wildness and are enabling us to quantify how wildness creates healthy, resilient grassland and aspen communities.

Volunteers Doing Track Transect Work, Photo by Cristina Eisenberg

Earthwatch Institute, Parks Canada, and Oregon State University support our work. Our data thus far are showing that elk avoid areas that have highest predation risk, although those areas also have the most plentiful, high-quality food. Elk in our study spend time where it’s easier for them to detect and escape predators–such as the edges of an aspen stand–but which have less abundant food. We also found that the more severe a fire, the higher the predation risk for elk.

I hope some of you will consider joining us in the field for this work (Tracking Fire and Wolves through the Canadian Rockies), which takes place in May of each year and provides an excellent learning opportunity and immersion in one of the wildest, most intact North American landscapes. You can help us answer questions about how the size of an aspen stand influences predation risk and elk browsing, and what happens when an area is burned repeatedly. Together we can quantify wildness and increase our understanding of the ecological role of wolves and fire.